gue like a
serpent's; "your life trembles in the balance. If that vessel now
approaching hails us, and you do not answer correctly, as I have already
warned you, this bullet goes through your brain. Do you hear?"

"I hear. I--I--I--hear," faltered out the first mate, while the
perspiration stood out in great beads of fright on his forehead.

The vessel in front came nearer and nearer; and presently she rounded-to
under the _Muscadine's_ stern, the old well-known Union Jack of Old
England floating up to the masthead the while, and a hearty voice
hailing the merchantman through a speaking-trumpet from her
quarter-deck, not half a cable's length away, in true nautical fashion--

"Ship ahoy! What ship is that?"

The corsair was standing by the side of Mr Tompkins, close by the
taffrail. Before Captain Harding had been taken below he had removed
his uniform cap and monkey-jacket, and put them on himself, so that he
might pass for one of the ship's officers, and he had likewise directed
the majority of his men to lie down on the deck, lest their numbers
might create suspicion.

As the stranger vessel approached nearer with the intention of speaking,
as he could understand, he lowered the revolver which he had held for
more than a minute pressed against the first mate's forehead. But he
had it still in his hand, as the trembling Tompkins was aware, ready for
action, only that its muzzle was now touching his side instead of his
temple.

"Now, answer correctly," whispered the corsair in the mate's ear, in a
fierce thrilling whisper that penetrated through every fibre of his
body, when the hail of the British man-of-war rang out in the
air.--"Answer as I told you, or you are a dead man, if fifty English
frigates were alongside!"

STORY TWO, CHAPTER SEVEN.

THE LAST OF THE OLD SHIP.

It was not an English frigate, as might have been supposed, from the
observation of the pirate chief, but one of those despatch vessels that
we usually keep in eastern waters in attendance on our Mediterranean
fleet; and being a steamer, of course she could arrest her progress, and
remain in proximity to the _Muscadine_ without the necessity of
laying-to like a sailing-ship, or any trouble save slacking speed.

"Answer," repeated the corsair sternly, still in the same melodramatic
whisper, enforcing his order with a dig of the revolver barrel in
Tompkins' side.

"The _Mus_--" began the mate in faltering accents. But another sa